Letter: Remember who voted for EU trade rules at next election
A letter from Stevan Patterson:
After the debate and vote on continued EU trade rules at Stormont on December 10 as part of the democratic consent legislation, which is anything but democratic for the first time in the 103-year history of Northern Ireland, unionist concerns have been ignored in a rigged vote.
This vote, despite it being controversial, was by a simple majority as part of the Northern Ireland Protocol, enabled by the rewriting of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement to deliberately remove cross-community consent to deny the wishes of unionists.
The resulting vote was 48 nationalist and Alliance MLAs for, as to 36 unionist MLAs against.
All unionist MLAs in voting against also voted for a positive renegotiation to help to improve trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK which is our most important market.
A vote to trigger a renegotiation would have been to the benefit of all the people of Northern Ireland, whether nationalist, unionist or neither.
The alliance of Alliance and all nationalists who voted to continue to follow EU laws for another four years which the legislators in the assembly cannot make or cannot change must now take ownership for the economic damage that they will be inflicting on all the people of Northern Ireland over the next four years.
By the time of the next election we will continue to follow EU rules as part of still being an EU colony thanks to nationalist and Alliance MLAs and all the people of Northern Ireland will be suffering from ever increasing loss of choice and increased costs.
Then the voters would need to remember that Alliance is happy for the people of Northern Ireland to be treated as second class citizens, and with that knowledge in mind should vote accordingly.
Stevan Patterson, Castlederg